


Jack Tripper and the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse

by mcgarrygirl78



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Drama, F/M, Humor, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 18:30:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2438597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe he should try his luck with brunettes or redheads…blondes weren't doing him any good at the moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jack Tripper and the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse

When Emily got back to the bullpen it was just after nine thirty. She’d left at five thirty for an early dinner with her sister Julia, who was in town on business. They met up at Pasha, this great Turkish place in Georgetown. There the Prentiss sisters drank martinis, ate chicken and lamb, and caught up with each other’s lives. Julia had a lot more to say than Emily. Julia had her work at the U.N., her happy marriage to Nicholas, and the joy of her two children.

Emily had work, work, and more work. She had a few bad dates, some strip aerobics, the Betty Crocker cookbook, and George. Jules never judged. She never asked when would Emily get married and start a family. She never asked how she could love her job with the BAU but not enjoy it. She never gave her the ‘sad’ look; the same one their mother was so good at Emily was sure she had it patented.

They parted ways after a few hours of sister time. There were plans made to get together Monday afternoon before Julia left town, if Emily was even in town. Then she went back to Quantico. Her first thought was to go home, max out on her couch in pajamas with her cat, and watch something on TV. You could always find something on TV to watch.

Sure it was sad that that was her Friday night plan but wasn’t it even sadder to come back to the office. The only thing that spurred Emily on was the fact that no one would be there but her and the cleaning crew. She would actually be able to get more of her paperwork done, the piles were becoming insane. Over the weekend she wouldn’t have to think about the BAU at all. So she got back in her SUV and back on I-395.

As Emily walked into the quiet bullpen, a rare occurrence, she was shocked to see Hotch’s lamp on. Her first thought was that the cleaning crew left it on after they finished in there. For the past couple of weeks Hotch actually left in the evening. He left at a decent time and left his team baffled. He was probably going home to his son, which was a good thing. But Emily started to sense it was something more.

That might have something to do with Garcia hearing him on the phone with a woman one night in the elevator. She said their Unit Chief was being very cryptic during the call and seemed in a rush to end it because he wasn’t alone. Emily didn’t want to believe it at first but Hotch had a right to date. He had a right to do anything he wanted.

His marriage was over; Hotch was back on the market. Forty three was a good age. Emily didn’t want to think about the fact that she liked that age just fine for a man. It was so long since she’d been on a good date…it wasn’t worth thinking about.

Trying and failing to talk herself out of it, Emily bypassed her desk. She headed up the stairs, walked down to his door, and knocked on it. He said come in and Emily did. Well, she poked her head in.

“I didn’t think anyone else would be here.” She said instead of hello.

“Prentiss?” Hotch took off his glasses as he looked at her.

She knew it was late; she’d never seen Hotch in his glasses. Everyone knew he wore contacts but now it was like staring at Clark Kent. So this was what he looked like when he wasn’t leaping tall buildings in a single bound…or something like that.

“Hey.” Emily put on a smile.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.” She took the opportunity to walk into his office. There was paperwork everywhere, just like on her desk. Hotch was signing things and putting them in their appropriate bins for assistants to come by and pick up early in the morning.

“I never left. You did as I recall. Dinner with your sister, right?”

“Yeah,” Emily nodded. “We went to Pasha but the plan was always to come back.”

“I didn’t know you liked Turkish food.” Hotch said.

“Be serious Hotch, I like food in general. It was a lovely restaurant.”

“Why did you come back?” he asked.

“This might sound silly but I’d rather work until midnight tonight then come in over the weekend. I also don’t want to worry about my paperwork devouring my desk. I was trying to get a handle on it before getting called into the principal’s office.”

“We’re all a little behind.” He said.

“I'm making up for lost time.” she said. “I thought you would’ve picked up Jack for a boys’ weekend.”

“I’ll be doing that tomorrow afternoon. I was pretty much thinking the same thing you were. A leader must lead by example. If my desk looks like an avalanche what can I expect from my team.”

“I get that.” Emily nodded. “Plus it must really put a cramp in your neat freak ways.”

“I am not a neat freak.”

He said it in his typical Hotch tone but Emily thought her eyes were deceiving her because she saw a smile. It was so quick she thought she might have imagined it but it was impossible to imagine those dimples. She didn’t see them often but they were beautiful.

“OK, OK,” she held up her hands in surrender. “I won't judge; I surely have my own quirks.”

“Yes you do.” Hotch replied.

“Hey, you didn’t have to agree so quickly.” She smiled.

Hotch looked down at his paperwork again, speaking without looking at her.

“Well I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

She knew that dismissal. That was the ‘you're getting too close, please back away’ thing. Emily had seen it in several different forms and it was quite familiar to her. Hotch didn’t let people in. He let Rossi in, almost begrudgingly, because Dave was the kind of friend who rarely gave you a choice. The rest of the team he held at arm’s length.

Some tried, more than others, to penetrate those brick walls. They were just met with more brick walls. Emily wondered what kind of woman he was dating, if Hotch was even dating. Did he let her in? Did he hold her, kiss her, and hate to see her leave at the end of the night? Did she know his favorite song, his favorite drink, and that special spot to kiss and make him purr?

Every man had that special spot. Did he cry out her name in a dark room with cheesy love songs playing on the radio? Did she know Jack? Had he met people important to her?

Had they already had their first fight about his lack of time and attention? Did he think she was someone who might be in it for the long haul? She was probably blonde, like Haley and Kate Joyner and that Unsub Megan Kane that he’d gotten a little too close to. Maybe he should try his luck with brunettes or redheads…blondes weren't doing him any good at the moment.

“Earth to Prentiss.”

“I'm sorry?” she came out of her head and noticed she was still standing in the same spot in the middle of Hotch’s office.

Oh God, Emily hoped she hadn't been gone too long. Sometimes her mind went on tangents and she could lose chunks of time. It wasn’t as if she blacked out or didn’t know what was happening. She was thinking too hard and when people called her on it there usually ended up being some insane confusion that was straight out of a 70s sitcom.

“You went far away.” Hotch said. “How often do you do that?”

“Not often.” She lied. “I'm sorry; I guess I just have a lot on my mind. I’ll leave you to your work.”

Hotch nodded and she turned to leave the room. Emily was back in a matter of moments, shocking her boss. Hotch just looked at her. Over time he’d mastered many of Prentiss’ faces. She probably had no idea how much he studied her.

She was a fascinating human being. Hotch could hardly explain it but Emily Prentiss was one of those women you could know and she was still a complete stranger to you. She was the sum of an infinite number of parts. She was a recovering party girl who loved dark music and cheesy love songs. She was fluent in five languages, conversational in nearly twelve and yet he’d seen her get tongue-tied. She was Ivy League educated but had no qualms about being with ‘regular’ people.

She smoked those silly, overpriced, foreign cloves but she and Morgan loved cheap beer. She was strong and fierce but also shy and vulnerable. And now apparently she could get lost in her own mind. It wasn’t that Hotch thought he was the only one who did. It was just comforting to know she did too. He could add it to the growing list of things he refused to admit to himself that they had in common.

“Prentiss…?”

“Are you dating someone?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you dating someone?” she repeated. “I probably have no right to ask you that question and forgive my intrusion on your personal life, but…”

“But?”

“Are you dating someone?”

“I haven’t been on a date since the eleventh grade.” Hotch replied, hardly believing he told her the truth. “Haley was my high school sweetheart.”

“Oh.”

“Where did that come from?”

“I have no idea.” Emily laughed and sounded nervous. “I'm sorry Hotch, I just…I should mind my own business. Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me and…”

“Are you dating someone?” he countered.

“Me?” Emily pointed to herself. “Yeah right.”

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”

“I'm like the Jack Tripper of dating. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. It will go wrong hard, fast, and with dire consequences.”

“Dire consequences?”

“Mmm hmm, I'm talking locusts, blood moons, and horsemen.” Emily replied.

“I'm not sure if I believe that.”

“Clearly you’ve never been on a date with me.”

“No,” Hotch shook his head. “No, I haven’t. I'm not thinking that it would be apocalyptic though.”

“You were seventeen in eleventh grade right?” she asked, seeming to change the subject.

“Yes.”

“OK, so a guy who hasn’t been on a date in 25 years and the world’s biggest nerd go on a date…”

“Prentiss, I don’t think you're a nerd.”

“See, you can't even say my first name. I'm talking locusts, Hotch.”

“Emily, you are not a nerd. Even if you are I don’t care about that kind of thing. I hope you wouldn’t think that I'm that superficial.”

“I think we’re talking about going on a date.” She said, not believing this was actually happening.

“Hypothetically, yes.”

“Well then I'm a hypothetical nerd.”

This time the smile spread across his whole face and couldn’t be hidden.

“I tend to find that the most fascinating people have no idea that they're fascinating.” Hotch replied. “Which is probably all the better.”

“I agree. I’ll leave you alone now.”

“Why did you think I was dating someone?” Hotch asked, keeping her from leaving the room.

He didn’t know if he just wanted to keep talking or if he wanted to know where she got that crazy idea from. The BAU could resemble high school sometimes; if it wasn’t one rumor it was another. Hotch heard his fair share about himself and his team. Just because he heard them didn’t mean that he listened to them. But he heard them.

“We’re not supposed to profile each other.” she said.

“And that’s never stopped us.”

“No.” Emily smiled. “I don't know Hotch; you’ve been leaving the office at a decent hour. You’ve been doing it a lot in the past few weeks. You seem mellower but I might just be imagining things, putting that together with you leaving the office earlier. I noticed a new tie or two as well. I guess I put two and two together and got…”

“Therapy.” He replied.

“That was so not what I was going to say.”

“I'm seeing a doctor, Emily; a psychiatrist.”

“Oh.” She looked down at her shoes. “I didn’t mean to intrude in your life, Hotch.”

“You're the first person I'm telling.”

“I won't tell a soul; I promise.”

“I appreciate it. Things have just been stressful lately and I wasn’t handling them in a manner that was producing results. So I tried something a little different.”

“I find therapy to be awesome.” Emily said. “I hope it helps you do everything you want to do, Hotch.”

“Thank you.”

An awkward silence crept into the room and Emily started to shuffle a bit. She needed to make a graceful exit, something she’d never been very good at.

“I've taken up enough of your time. Excuse me.”

“How much longer are you going to stay?” Hotch asked.

“I was going to go until midnight.” She said.

“I’ll stay with you. I don’t like the idea of you being here alone that late.”

“You don’t have…”

“I want to.” he said. “I can give you a ride home. We live in the same city now; it’s not out of my way.”

“OK.” She nodded and walked out of the office.

Hotch watched her go. He’d thought about stopping her one more time, asking her how she felt about breakfast after midnight. He knew Prentiss liked food; had heard her go on and on about the benefits of pancakes more than once. The Georgetown Diner had great pancakes. It would be interesting to share a meal together that wasn’t in a strange town when they were there to stop a maniac. Anyway, if Prentiss was as bad at this as she said, Hotch thought he’d want to see that.

He knew she was wrong even if he didn’t believe he was wrong about himself being that way. Maybe being bad together for a late night meal would calm both of their frayed nerves. His therapist told him it was time to come out of the darkness and embrace all that a new life had to offer. It wasn’t going anywhere; his wife wasn’t taking him back. He could still be Aaron Hotchner while making a few changes in his life.

Anything involving Emily would be a good change. Friends or something more…no, that was thinking too far ahead. That was something else he had to stop doing. Emily liked food, he would invite her to eat, and they would go from there. Where would they go? The possibilities were limitless and so were Hotch’s thoughts on the subject.

***

  



End file.
